1,3-Dioxan-4,6-dione compounds are a kind of active methylene compounds, which are compounds useful as materials for synthesizing physiologically active natural compounds, medicines and agricultural chemicals, pigments, functional materials and the like.
Particularly, a 1,3-dioxan-4,6-dione compound having dimethyl group at the 2-position is called Meldrum's acid, can be produced by allowing acetone and malonic acid to undergo the reaction in acetic anhydride in the presence of a catalytically effective amount of sulfuric acid (J. Chem. Soc., vol. 93, p. 598, 1908 and J. Am. Chem. Soc., vol. 70, p. 3426, 1948) and is also on the market.
General 1,3-dioxan-4,6-dione compounds can be synthesized in accordance with the methods described in Chem. Ber., vol. 94, p. 929, 1961 and Tetrahedron Lett., vol. 30, p. 5281, 1989. In addition, a method for producing a 1,3-dioxan-4,6-dione compound derived from cyclohexanone and malonic acid is also related (JP-A-2002-249674).